Abiding

Every first contains within the seed of its last. This is 
part of living. Before you arrived, you appeared to me 
in a dream. You ran ahead on the sidewalk and looked back, 
reaching toward me, a flower bud unfurling 
a promised petal. The scent of loamy earth. I could not see 
your face, but I knew who you were—dear 
in the dimming, dappled light. The distance between us seemed 
unbridgeable then. When you sing, I hear you in full, at three and thirteen 
and thirty, in the pulse under the notes. They reverberate without sound 
in my sleep. How old will you be when I am a million years, you ask, 
the luminosity of an eternal kingdom a banked spark 
in your eyes. I can only stroke your hair 
with speechless hands. I hope to always remember 
the intricate shell curve of your ears, the way you demand again, now, more 
—how you relish the dripping pulp of fruit vivid through your fingers, 
each sensation a surprise. The burst of juice 
on my tongue tastes of your wonder. I swallow 
and close my eyes to an afterimage: 
you, nestled milk-sweet in my tired arms 
you, coltish legs speeding up, that same sidewalk. 
Again, now, more. Each passing moment shimmers 
with a choice, a chord hung in suspension, days made and unmade. 
What are you running toward? Is it a place I can know? 
A vine grows. Its fruit ripens slowly— 
bitter before it tinges sweet.